The Game Freaks Who Play With Bugs

In Praise of the Video Game Xevious

Abstract

In the 1980s, Japanese habits were being drastically transformed by the integration of video games in the entertainment industry. This change first took hold in the large network of arcade parlors that were established all over the country, which was a result of the craze of Space Invaders in the summer of 1978 (Taito). Those venues saw a rapid influx of new coin-operated video games that were ever more sophisticated and engaging than before. On the home front, not only had Nintendo’s Family Computer democratized the pleasures of digital entertainment, but it allowed people to play games from arcades comfortably at home. It also allowed them to embark on longer video game adventures with the release of RPGs such as Dragon Quest (Enix, 1986). Such games made computer role playing games accessible to a wider demographic than the small circles of personal computer enthusiasts. However, the suddenness of this invasion in the fabric of everyday life was not without triggering some concerns. Indeed, critics became wary of the negative effects of video games and, around 1985, a feeling of uneasiness towards this new form of entertainment started to spread across Japanese media (Sakamoto, qtd. in Kumada, 2011, p. 2). Arcades were spoken of as hotbeds of delinquency and home video games as sneaky devices shifting children’s focus away from school and social interactions (Katou, 2011, p. 43-47). For many people, video games were a problem. It is in this context that Nakazawa Shin’ichi, in 1984, wrote one of the first academic texts in Japanese on video games, which was about a very influential arcade title of that period called Xevious (Namco, 1983).